The Rink

February 2008

The Rink is a musical with lyrics by Fred Ebb, and music by John Kander (the team that wrote Chicago and Cabaret) and a book by Terence McNally (Ragtime, Kiss of the Spider Woman)
The tenth Kander and Ebb collaboration, it focuses on Anna (originally played by Chita Rivera), the owner of a dilapidated roller skating rink on the boardwalk of a decaying seaside resort, who has decided to sell it to developers. Complicating her plans are her prodigal daughter Angel (originally played by Liza Minelli), who returns to town seeking to reconnect with the people and places she long ago left behind. Through a series of flashbacks, revelations, and minimal forward-moving plot development, the two deal with their pasts in their attempt to reconcile and move on with their lives.
"A serious musical ... Terence McNally's book is lean and hard even in its sentimentality McNally uses a very fluid time warp for his story ... The Rink ... provides much pleasure as well as real emotion." New York Post "A family relations saga that can be both tough and sentimental ... The Rink looks back at the period culminating in the 1970s with a perspective touched with humor" The Christian Science Monitor "Since the music and lyrics were supplied by John Kander and Fred Ebb, who wrote Cabaret, it is not surprising that the score is stuffed with bouncy, melodic songs that echo the jagged rhythms of Kurt Weill and the jaunty aura of the fairground." London Evening Standard
This innovative musical is set in a Coney Island of the mind, on the ragged fringe of the New York show-biz world. Anna's roller rink is about to be demolished and with it Anna's sour memories of her husband and daughter. The rink becomes an extra arena in which mother and daughter examine their past, present and future.
All roles in the flashbacks, men and women, are played by the Wreckers.